Mud Cake Pops

This is the absolute epitome of resourceful baking. Allow me to tell you why.

When you bake a cake, take it out of the dish and see all those crumbs stuck to the bottom and sides of the dish, what do you do? Chuck them? (*gasp*)

I take a spoon or knife, scrape them off, bung them into a bowl and eat them as I come and go, telling myself, “It’s not like you’re eating a lot of cake, it’s just crumbs!”

Not this time.

This time, I took the crumbs and trimmings of a decadent mud cake and turned them into these ridiculously fun cake pops!

How cute are they!!! I always wished as a kid, that lollipops didn’t have to be fake-fruit-flavoured. Why not chocolate…..cake flavoured? Excuse me while I go tell myself, 15 years ago, that IT IS POSSIBLE!!!!

My last post was about one of two birthday goodies I baked over the weekend two birthday girls. This is the second one. I made a chocolate mud cake using the same recipe from my mud cake cupcakes. Topped with an Amarula laced (yes, I know, I’m obsessed) chocolate ganache frosting and buttercream icing.

The friend I made this for said it was awesome, as did the five others sitting around the table wolfing it down. It was soft and moist and chocolatey and just so sinful. Take a look 🙂

So how did the cake pops happen? Well, to get a nice even frosting, I trimmed the top layer of the mud cake. The part where the cake had risen and cracked. I had enough to make a few pops, combined with the crumbs I scraped off the spring-form pan.

Since I’ve shared the mud cake recipe before, I’ll just tell you what I did to make the pops.

First, I refrigerated the bits of cake and crumbs overnight and rolled them into little rounds the next day. This rolling part is a bit messy because I had to keep patching up broken pits. I wanted to avoid stirring melted butter into them, though it would have made it easier. Anyway, much painstaking rolling later, I had six cute little pops ready. I chilled them for a bit to harden while I made the dipping sauce.

For the sauce, I doubled the leftover ganache frosting with a bit more cream and chocolate.

Then I poked colourful cocktail stirrers into the pops, dipped them into the ganache, rolled them in sprinkles and voila.

Or not.

One cake pop gave up on me completely and just disintegrated in the sauce. Two others were on their way to do the same thing, but I managed to salvage them somehow by rolling them again and then crossing my fingers.

What I did learn was that the pops must be very, very firm before dipping into the sauce. The cocktail stirrers (or whatever you use) cannot be poked in too far or the pops will crack. What also helps is to chill the pops after poking them so they firm up around the stirrer.

Then GENTLY dip them in the sauce. At one point, I actually twirled the pop between my fingers and dropped sauce on it with my other hand. I did the sprinkles the same way. The more cooperative ones could be rolled around on a plate.

Then I stuck the prepared pops into the freezer for a while in a glass so that the tops didn’t flatten. They don’t freeze completely but harden enough to hold, take photos of and eat without having to wear a bib.

It’s madness. But so fun! And even more fun to eat!

The next time you make a cake, don’t ignore the crumbs 🙂

P.S. You could always bake a cake exclusively for these, but you’d be rolling pops for a VERY long time!